Ancient Wisdom Today » Biblical Languages

In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language

Maer — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:09:17 +0000

Hoffman, Joel. In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language. New York: NYU Press, 2006.

Hoffman traces the history of the Hebrew language from its antiquity to modern times. This book filled in some gaps in my knowledge of the language especially as it pertains to the differences in spelling, grammar and pronunciation of Hebrew in its different stages of development. People who have studied biblical Hebrew will benefit from his chapters on the Masoretes since most students are familiar with the Tiberian tradition but most likely never heard of the Babylonian or Palestinian families. Hoffman walks the reader through what we can learn from the Dead Sea scrolls followed by a tour of the different dialects in the Hebrew Bible and post-biblical Hebrew. I especially appreciated his chapter on Modern Hebrew with the fascinating story of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda who brought Hebrew back to life. Some readers may find some portions of the book a bit tedious, especially his discussion on spelling. But people like me who can’t get enough of Hebrew will appreciate the balance between a popular treatment of the subject and his attention to the details of the language.

Acts 9:7 and 22:9 – Did They Hear the Voice or Not?

Maer — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:43:22 +0000

Listening to debates can be quite entertaining. Every once in a while you hear a good argument, learn something new, find out what different authors or scholars allegedly think, and even enjoy a nice come-back to a rebuttal or a timely joke at the expense of the opposition. But sometimes listening to debates may create more work for you because it is hard to believe everything you hear—are the debaters putting forth their best arguments or just trying to get the upper hand?—and a topic may arise that you just have to roll up your sleeves and check the facts out for yourself. In this post, within the context of a debate between Dan Barker and Mike Licona on the resurrection of Jesus¹, I will look at a particularly interesting syntactical phenomenon in Greek where ακόυω (hear) takes different cases for its object, and the role it may play in two different accounts of Paul’s conversion in Acts.

Hebrew: Beyond the Basics

Maer — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:46:14 +0000

These are just a few books that I’ve read recently that have helped me get a little beyond the basics of Biblical Hebrew.

Arnold, Bill T., and John H. Choi. A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Bilingual. Cambridge University Press, 2003.

This is a great book for a quick review of Biblical Hebrew syntax, and the wealth of examples makes it an enjoyable reading. Although it was written to be used as a reference, I recommend reading through the whole book at least once as it may help you get a general sense of syntactical issues and exegetical possibilities. This might be a good book to read before working through An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax by Bruce Waltke and M. O’Connor which is a much larger work and also highly recommended.

Read more on Hebrew: Beyond the Basics…

מן and the Sinner in Leviticus

Maer — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:28:08 +0000

The exchange between Jacob Milgrom and Roy Gane on the proper meaning of the preposition מן (usually translated in its privative sense from) in some passages of Leviticus gives us an opportunity to take a look at the semantic possibilities of מן that may escape the notice of a student beginning to learn Hebrew.

To be more specific, the question is whether the meaning of מן in the חטאת pericopes in Leviticus– passages concerning purification offerings (traditionally translated as sin offerings)–should be translated as from (privative) or as for, on account of, because of (causitive). My goal in this post is not to summarize the arguments for and against the position of each scholar, but to show how important the right understanding of מן, and prepositions in general, may be for reconstructing whole systems or even getting behind the theology of a book.

A Parable: The Wise and Foolish Invitees

Maer — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:44:08 +0000

For this parable, we are going to have the benefit of not only seeing its Hebrew but also two translations. John Hobbins was kind enough to translate the text in two posts entitled “The Parable of the Banquet in the Talmud.” In the first part, he looks at the exchange between R. Eliezer and his students culminating in a quote from Qohelet. Hobbins reminds us of the importance of taking the context of the parables into consideration as they may have never been stand-alone units.

I have my doubts about the tendency to treat parables as self-contained units. They may have been (or may never have been), once upon a time, autonomous units. But, just as is the case with the parables of the New Testament, the parables of the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud do not stand on their own anymore. Relationship to context needs to be taken into full account.

Blessing and the Beginning of Torah

Maer — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:41:40 +0000

John Goldingay talks about blessing as one of the aspects of “God speaking” in creation. God’s speech is life-giving. He mentions something Genesis Rabbah says concerning the fact that Torah does not start with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, ‘aleph. And what does that have to do with blessing? Here is what he says,

“Thus blessing “is not simply a friendly wish” but “a bestowal of life-force… an act whereby the power-for-life monopolized by Yahweh generously is transmitted to Abraham and his descendants” (Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997], p. 165) — and here to humanity as a whole and to other living creatures. God shares power-for-life with the animal world. The prominence of the blessing theme makes for a pointed contrast with the gloomy vision of other Middle Eastern stories of the origins or the world and humanity, as well as with the troubled experience of Israel in; for instance, the exile. Genesis Rabbah 1:10 (on Gen 1:1) sees here another significance in the fact that Scripture begins with a bet, not an ‘alep, the second letter of the alphabet rather than the first, since b is the first letter of the word for blessing (whereas ‘aleph is the first letter of the word for curse). “Bless” has the first word in Scripture” (Israel’s Gospel, 54).

My Cup Runneth Over

Maer — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:34:05 +0000

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. (Psalm 23:5)

Even people who may not be too familiar with the biblical text will recognize the phrase “my cup runneth over” as coming from the Bible (and some might even guess it is from a psalm or Psalm 23). But, what does that really mean… my cup runneth over/overflows? Yalkut Shemoni (A haggadic compilation on the books of the Old Testament) has, in my view, an unexpected interpretation:

Said R. Abbaye, “from here we learn that the cup of David in the times to come [Messianic Age] will hold 221 logs [133 liters].”

Now that’s a big cup.

Creation and the Hebrew Alphabet: A Story

Maer — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:17:56 +0000

As I was reading a book on Jewish folkloric tales, I came across a story called The Aleph-Bet and immediately fell in love with it. It is short, cute and extremely imaginative.

I modified the original by including the Hebrew alphabet and words instead of their transliterations for visual effect. I think that even those who don’t know Hebrew will be able to follow the story and get its message.

The Aleph-Bet

When God was about to create the world, all twenty-two letters of the Aleph-Bet leapt off the flaming crown of God and crowded around the Heavenly Throne, pleading, “Create the world through me!”

First the (tav), the last letter of the aleph-bet, came forward. “I am the first letter of (Torah),” it said. “Create the world through me, for later on I will give Israel all its laws and stories.”

The Wisdom of Words

Maer — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:26:18 +0000

In chapter 2 “Proverbs – The Wisdom of Words,” Roland talks about the nature of the book of Proverbs and that “the true subtlety of the book is seldom recognized in its popular usage. A moral code undergirds it, but the real intent is to train a person, to form character, to show what life is really like and how best to cope with it” (15). One of the main things that Proverbs tries to do is persuade the reader. He looks at the first division, chapters 1-9, and considers verses 1:1-6 its hermeneutical key. Verse 1:7 is the motto of the book (with parallels in 9:10 and 31:30) and he quotes von Rad who said that this verse “contains in a nutshell the whole Israelite theory of knowledge” (16). I thought this was a very insightful way of understanding verse 7. I heard N. T. Wright once talk about being intrigued by the idea of love as a way of knowing. Here von Rad says that the fear of Yahweh is Israel’s epistemological center. I wonder how far we can take that idea.

The Tree of Life: Biblical Wisdom Literature

Maer — Sun, 18 May 2008 12:51:45 +0000

The Tree of Life: An Examination of Biblical Wisdom Literature was written by Roland Murphy and seems to be highly recommended (with your usual caveats) as an introduction to wisdom literature. Part of the reason I wanted to read this book was because Murphy also covers Ben Sira and Wisdom of Solomon, and I wanted to sink my teeth into these books (I plan to read them when I get to chapters 5 and 6).

People have said that Murphy’s take on Wisdom was very much influenced by von Rad and that it might be a good idea to read him first (I don’t know if this is really accurate). Well, I am not going to do that because I plan to read von Rad’s two volumes of his Old Testament theology (which I already own) and interact with him in the near future. Right now, I would like to see what Murphy has to say about wisdom literature and try to summarize his thoughts. I will probably concentrate on things that caught my attention and helped me think a little more clearly about this subject. This is not going to be a thorough review or a summary, but it might contain a little of both. I might comment on his arguments where necessary or read a separate article in his bibliography to supplement my reading. I will probably cover a couple of chapters at a time, but it will depend on the depth of the chapters in view. Here I will cover his first chapter.